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Coyotes-Wolves-Cougars.blogspot.com

Grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars/ mountain lions,bobcats, wolverines, lynx, foxes, fishers and martens are the suite of carnivores that originally inhabited North America after the Pleistocene extinctions.
This site invites research, commentary, point/counterpoint on that suite of native animals (predator and prey) that inhabited The Americas circa 1500-at the initial point of European exploration and subsequent colonization.
Landscape ecology, journal accounts of explorers and frontiersmen, genetic evaluations of museum animals, peer reviewed 20th and 21st century research on various aspects of our "Wild America" as well as subjective commentary from expert and layman alike. All of the above being revealed and discussed with the underlying goal of one day seeing our Continent rewilded.....Where big enough swaths of open space exist with connective corridors to other large forest, meadow, mountain, valley, prairie, desert and chaparral wildlands.....Thereby enabling all of our historic fauna, including man, to live in a sustainable and healthy environment. - Blogger Rick

Judge temporarily halts wolverine trapping

greatfallstribune.com; john Adams

FILE - This undated image provided by Glacier National Park, shows a wolverine inside Glacier National Park, Mont. The Obama administration announced Tuesday May 10, 2011 that it intends to work through a backlog of more than 250 imperiled animal and plant species, including the wolverine, over the next six years to decide if they need protection under the Endangered Species Act. (AP Photo/Glalcier National Park, Jeff Copeland) / AP

HELENA — Montana District Court Judge Jeffery Sherlock on Friday granted an injunction stopping the wolverine trapping season until a full hearing on state's trapping season can be heard.

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Helena Hunters and Anglers and six other conservation groups filed a lawsuit in October aimed at outlawing wolverine trapping in Montana. Federal wildlife officials in December 2010 determined wolverines were eligible for protection under the Endangered Species Act. Wolverine numbers have been in long-term decline and their habitat is dramatically shrinking because of warmer temperatures and reduced area of spring snow, which the animals use to den, rear their young and scavenge for food.The plaintiffs asked the judge to stop wolverine trapping in Montana until the full case can be heard. Wolverine trapping was set to begin Saturday. Montana is the only state in the Lower 48 to allow wolverine trapping. "We are happy that the judge stopped trapping before more wolverines could be killed," said Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.Once prolific across the West, the population of wolverine in the Lower 48 states is now down to no more than 250-300 individuals, of which Montana has the highest concentration of about 100-175, according to wildlife experts.The Alliance in August petitioned Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission to halt trapping. Garrity said the commission did not respond to the petition and did not formally open the wolverine trapping issue to public comment after the petition was filed. Consequently, the Alliance and its co-plaintiffs filed suit in state district court in October, challenging continued trapping as a violation of state laws requiring maintenance or restoration of rare animals.

Biologists and animal behaviourists are working with Parks Canada to find ways to recondition coyotes so that they're afraid of humans again. (PARKS CANADA)

It's not just that coyotes seem bolder, they really are becoming more brazen when it comes to contact with humans.
And with boldness comes aggression
.
"Coyotes live in family groups and their learning is social learning, which leads to multi-generational behaviour," Derek Quann, Parks Canada's resource conservation manager at Cape Breton Highlands National Park, said Thursday. "Coyotes are now being raised as pups not to fear people."

That fact alone is enough to raise the hackles of park visitors, woodsmen, fishermen and hikers. And the problem is not just in the national park systerm. Over the past few years, people throughout Nova Scotia have increasingly reported encounters with coyotes. Some have been terrifying, some resulted in bites, others in very serious injury.

But it was the brutal death of a visitor to Cape Breton Highlands National Park that really hit home for Parks Canada. Taylor Luciow, 19, a folksinger from Toronto, was attacked by two coyotes in October 2099 while hiking the Skyline Trail. She died later after being airlifted to a Halifax hospital.
"There weren't many incidents prior to 2009 but we saw an increase in aggressiveness and we have less tolerance after this death," Quann said. "Our threshold has changed.

Coyote in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

"If a coyote is identified as aggressive, we go in and investigate and if it's a problem, it will be destroyed. "Coyotes should never approach people and for the safety of our visitors, we just have no tolerance."

Nonetheless, Quann said it's believed the intelligent canid can be reconditioned to fear humans.
Biologists and animal behaviourists from Acadia, Memorial and Dalhousie universities are working with Parks Canada to help find solutions."We're in the third year of a four-year management program to use science to examine the relationship between coyotes and humans and reduce conflict between the two species," Quann explained.

In the short term, scientists looked at how humans could change their behaviour.Among the changes are efforts to discourage the feeding of coyotes "either directly or indirectly, because this will lead to boldness and aggression in the animal," he said. Work is also ongoing with educational programs that teach people how to act when they see a coyote.

"Then we looked at what there is about coyotes we can focus on to change their behaviour, to instill a fear of people," Quann said. "For about a year now, we've been collaring coyotes and we've found out many things about these family-oriented, territorial canids."Right now there are about 10 coyotes with GPS collars and scientists can study where they go and how close they come to humans.
"We studied the flight distances, how close would they come to humans before fleeing so that we have information that is data rich and science-based," he said.

"There's too much risk in trying to correct an aggressive animal and not every animal is retrainable, but if we can get to the animals on the verge or the younger ones, we would have more success."
Experts suggest there are close to 100 coyotes in the national park.

A psychologist who is also an animal behaviourist has been working to understand the pathways to getting under the coyotes skin, so to speak."The concept is multi-modal overstimulation, including smell, hearing, touch," Quann said. "Touch is important because coyotes don't like to be handled."
Next year, the effort to retrain coyotes will begin in earnest.

"If we can capture the animals and teach the older ones to fear people then they will pass on that fear to the younger ones," he explained."You take a wild animal and they don't like to be touched or loud noises. The overstimulation may make them fear humans.

"Coyotes are extremely adaptable and they learn quickly."As an example of how quickly the inquisitive, intelligent animals are, he pointed out that they are difficult to trap "and if you trap them once, good luck trapping them again."

As for complete eradication of coyotes, Quann wonders why that would even be considered.
"They should coexist peacefully with us," he said. "They should be present but elusive, leave their droppings, paw prints, perhaps scratches on a tree, and we should be able to hear them yelp and howl in the distance while we sit around the campfire."

What do polar bears eat and how is their food threatened?
mnn.com; John Platt

The animals have adapted over tens of thousands of years to an environment that is growing increasingly fragile. It all starts with a whiff of the cold air. A ringed seal swims under the thick layer of ice that covers the Arctic Ocean, uses the sharp claws on its front flippers to carve a small breathing hole, and takes a breath. That hole, along with 10 or 15 others the seal carves nearby, will be its main source of oxygen for months on end.

But not far from that hole, a polar bear sniffs the air. Smelling the scent of seal on the wind, the bear approaches the ice hole and waits ... and waits ... and waits. Then, when the seal at last returns to the hole for another breath of air, the bear strikes. Dinner is served.

Seals like this form the basis of the polar bear's diet. Although these predators will eat just about anything — including walruses, bird eggs and even whales — they have adapted over a period of hundreds of thousands of years to rely on seals and sea ice for their survival. The evolutionary advantage has allowed polar bears to thrive. "The polar bear's diet, which is highly specialized to consume the fat-rich seals that they catch on the surface of the sea ice, has allowed them to become the largest of the bears," says Dr. Steven Amstrup, chief scientist for Polar Bears International.

what to eat if Polar Bears end up on land instead of ice where the seals are?

But this evolutionary advantage has also put polar bears at risk. Global warming endangers the species, so much so that the animals have become one of the icons that conservationists use to illustrate the threat posed by climate change. As the Arctic sea ice melts, the polar bears lose their primary hunting ground — not to mention their most plentiful and nutritious prey. It remains a question whether they will be able to adapt to changing conditions and survive.

A species adapted for its environment

Polar bears spend so much time at sea that they are actually considered marine mammals. Their water-repellant fur and thick layers of fat keep them dry and warm during the harshest winter months. They use the periods of sea ice not only to hunt, but to pack enough fat on their bodies to last through the lean months when the ice recedes and the bears are forced to retreat back onto land, where other food sources remain scarce.

In addition to their fur and fat, their bodies tell us how polar bears have adapted to their harsh environment. "It's clear that the shape of the polar bear skull and their dentition is clearly adapted to a carnivorous diet," Amstrup says. "Polar bear teeth have drawn toward the almost catlike look, with well-developed carnassial or shearing surfaces on their pre-molars. The shearing actions of these teeth are more suited to cutting through blubber and hide." Other bears, such as brown bears, don't have this hide-slicing adaptation and have teeth and skulls more suited to eating vegetation, fish and land-based mammals.

Too much change

Unfortunately, the environment today may be changing too rapidly for the polar bear to adapt. "By the end of this century, temperatures are likely to rise above anything polar bears have seen any time in their past history," Amstrup says. "Polar bears' ancestors may have separated from those of brown bears as early as 4 million years ago, and we know they had achieved their sea-ice specialty by about 120,000 years ago. We can't expect them to suddenly, in the course of a few decades, make up for the degree of specialization they acquired during their evolutionary history."

Amstrup emphasizes that some polar bear populations might actually benefit, albeit temporarily, from warming temperatures, especially the bears that currently live in the coldest climates. As polar bears spend more time on land, there might also be short-term adaptations that allow them to survive for a few years without dining on their usual diet of ringed seals. "Some have suggested they may increase their feeding on goose eggs, for example," he says. "Goose eggs and the eggs of other ground-nesting birds are energy-rich and a few bears may temporarily make up for lost feeding opportunity on the ice by taking advantage of such food sources." But Amstrup says this is not a permanent solution: "If the whole bear population was trying to survive on eggs, soon there would be no geese left. You have to ask, is there some terrestrial food out there that could work in the long run, and the answer is no. We haven't seen any evidence that anything could provide long-term salvation."

Other evidence already shows that polar bears are unlikely to thrive once they become land-locked. "We have two major pieces of evidence that polar bears will not be sustained in anything like current distribution or numbers by land-based foods," Amstrup says. "First, in western Hudson Bay, studies have shown that polar bears lose about two pounds of body weight for each day they are stuck on land. If there was something out there that could forestall that weight loss, they would be consuming it.

"Second, in northern Alaska we have polar bears living on the sea ice offshore and grizzly bears living on land. The polar bears are the largest bears in the world. The neighboring grizzly bears, on the other hand, are the smallest of all brown bears and live at very low densities because the environment is poor from the standpoint of a bear. Why would we think that whole populations of the largest bears in the world could successfully be placed on a landscape that currently supports only small numbers of small bears?"

Can Polar Bears prey switch off of seals to goose eggs and survive long term?

Polar bears are opportunistic predators. Given a chance, they'll eat just about anything. But with the world warming and sea ice disappearing along with the polar bear's food sources, the species' chances of survival are in question.

Whenever we think about wilderness and mountain men, most of us get a vision of 1800-1840 Rocky Mountains where fur trappers reigned supreme in the post Lewis & Clark era.

It tends not to register thatLjust as Western North America was wilderness in the early 19th century, so too was the eastern half of North America this same wilderness as the first Europeans set foot on Continent in AD 1500-------

New Hampshire's first village started to become a reality in 1623(123 years after white people entered the New World)............Only 4 towns existed in the state prior to 1700............The white populatrion in 1639 totaled 500 souls...............137 years later during the Revolutionary period 60,000 white people made their home there-----New Hampshire was at this time still an undevloped region with fur trapping very much in vogue..................However, once the Revolutionary war ended, the human population began to mushroom--It tripled to 184,000 white people by 1800----And with this tripling, the wildlife of the region retreated rapidly, to the point where in the mid 1850's, the carnivores were all but gone and a cloak of pastoral quietness blanketed the landscape.

According to Babock(1925), the bottom had dropped out of the New England fur trade by the late 18th century.. Except for Maine, by 1764, New England was done as "Mountain Man" heaven , replaced by the better quality and quantity of Canadian Furs and the Hudson Bay Company to the north.

CARIBOU

The Caribou was never more than casual visitors to New Hampshire and most of New England, except for Maine according to the earliest colonial writings on the animal. They were mentioned in the northern reaches of New Hampshire as a periodic animal that the Indians would hunt when present............Weeks(1888) stated that "I have never seen one but it appears that some 60 or 70 years ago, a herd came down form the northeast and spread over Addroscoggin County, but did not come as far west as Connectitcut."

Caribou did appear on the State Law Books in 1878 with a closed season except in Coos County, where there might be a hope of coming across the creature.......By 1901, hunting of Caribou was prohibited. In 1885, 13 Caribou were spotted in the 2nd Connecticut Lake region.

MOOSE

It is difficult today to imagine the former abundance of Moose. They played a large part in the Indian economy of what is now New Hampshire. North of the St. Lawrence during the 17th century, the French hunted the Moose on the crust(ice) with dogs, after the manner of the Indians. Many took 30 or 40 in a season. The Sieru d'Aunay(first nations people), between 1645 and 1650 traded about 3000 skins annually.Pierre Radisoon who co-founded the Hudson Bay company killed over 600 around AD1600. The Indians did not make serious inroads into the Moose poulation until the hides could be traded for European goods. From then on, Moose hides became 2nd in importance to Beaver in some sections of New Hampshire. By 1705, they were scarce in St Francis. On the other side of New Hampshire , Sebastian Rasle wrote in 1723 that there were no longer any Moose or Deer present.

The Pioneers arriving to settle Coos County come the close of the French & Indian War(1763), found Moose still plentiful.

Moose rather than Deer were numerous in New Hampshire and were the characteristic ungulate in the region. The exact range of the Moose in New Hampshire is unknown but Byers(1946) states that they ranged south from the Boreal forests through the coniferous swamps in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Merrill(1920) states that their range since the coming of white men never extended south of the northern border of Massachusetts. Wood(1634) tells us that there were not many in Massachusetts but 40 miles to the northeast were "great store of them."

The last Moose was killed in Peterboro in 1760......in Antrim 1790 and in Sanbornton as late as 18115-20. By 1820, Moose were scarce in southern Coos County. In northern Coos, Moose held on through the middle of the 19th century.

Maple Syrup, Moose, and the Impacts of Climate Change in the North

ScienceDaily — In the northern hardwood forest, climate change is poised to reduce the viability of the maple syrup industry, spread wildlife diseases and tree pests, and change timber resources. And, according to a new BioScience paper just released by twenty-one scientists, without long-term studies at the local scale -- we will be ill-prepared to predict and manage these effects.

Following an exhaustive review of more than fifty years of long term data on environmental conditions at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the paper's authors arrived at a sobering conclusion: current climate change models don't account for real life surprises that take place in forests.

Lead author Dr. Peter Groffman, a microbial ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, comments, "Climate change plays out on a stage that is influenced by land-use patterns and ecosystem dynamics. We found that global climate models omit factors critical to understanding forest response, such as hydrology, soil conditions, and plant-animal interactions."

One thing is clear: at Hubbard Brook Forest spring is advancing and fall is retreating. Over the past half century, the climate has warmed and there has been a rise in rainfall and a decrease in snowfall. Winters are getting shorter and milder, with snowpack melting some two weeks earlier. But soil thaw is no longer tightly coupled with spring plant growth, creating a transitional period that results in the loss of important soil nutrients.

In the absence of insulating snow pack, exposed soils are more susceptible to freezing, which damages tree roots. Sugar maples are suffering a one-two punch: soil frost is linked to tree mortality and warmer winters reduce sap yield. Mild winters are also encouraging the spread of pests and pathogens, including the destructive hemlock woolly adelgid -- which was once held in check by cold winter temperatures.

As snow depth decreases, deer are better able to forage in the forest. Their browsing damages young trees and spreads a parasite that is lethal to moose. Reduced snow pack is also a challenge for logging operations, which use snow-packed roads to move trees, and ski resorts, which already rely heavily on human-made snow.

Groffman concludes, "Managing the forests of the future will require moving beyond climate models based on temperature and precipitation, and embracing coordinated long-term studies that account for real-world complexities." Adding, "These studies can be scaled up, to give a more accurate big picture of climate change challenges -- while also providing more realistic approaches for tackling problems at the regional scale."

Abundant acorn crop might make Md. deer hunters work harder

wjla.com

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) - Maryland game managers say deer hunters might have to work to fill their tags during this firearm season opening. The season opens on Saturday.

Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist Brian Eyler says the acorn crop was abundant, so deer won't be moving around much in search of food.That means less contact with hunters during the two-week season.

For the fourth straight year, the Maryland Farm Bureau is encouraging hunters to target does in hopes of reducing the deer population.(appears that
Every doe carcass donated to a participating butcher shop gets the donor into a drawing for hundreds of dollars' worth of outdoor products.
The program is active in 13 counties in central and southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore.
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Whitetail deer plentiful as shotgun season opens Monday in Massachusetts

By Frank Sousamasslive.com

The 2012 whitetail deer shotgun season, which opens Monday, could reach a high harvest of close to 13,000 animals, depending on several factors.

One thing for certain there are plenty of deer. This is due mostly to the transition of one level forest to two levels of trees, development of farms and an excellent MassWildlife deer project.

A relatively mild 2011-2012 winter could mean a deer kill of more than 12,000 animals, a far cry from the 1950 and 1960s where the total harvest a couple of times fell below 2,000.

As always, fresh snow can add to a total harvest while bitter cold winds and fewer hunters could mean a lower figure.

The herd itself appears in good condition. If a goodly number of hunters are selected to pick up additional permits to hunt Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, the total could go even higher.

The two islands, ravaged by Lyme disease because of over population, invited hunters last season. Then they set up barriers that turned off sportsmen.

The final figures for the 2011 deer seasons announced earlier this year by MassWildlife deer project leader David Stainbrook was 11,154 whitetails shot during the combined seasons.

There is good reason to expect an increase during each season. Again, it's predicated on fresh snow and lack of bitter cold weather and winds.

There were eight deer shot during the paraplegic season, 3,765 during archery; 5,349 in shotgun, 1,959 primitive arms and 37 during the special Quabbin Reservation hunt.

Stainbrook said high deer densities in suburban areas of eastern Massachusetts where hunter access is limited, has been a problem but recent trends in towns opening lands to archery hunting have shown promise for reducing numbers.

The expertise of the MassWildlife deer project is pointed out by the fact that only 1,193 deer were harvested in 1967 and 1,427 in 1968. The next eight years the totals were in the 2,000 bracket.

The total was 10,699 in 2010; 10,381 in 2009; 11,217 in 2008.

The harvest came close to 13,000 in 2004. Both 2003 and 2005 saw more than 12,000 animals shot as the number of antlerless permits was increased due to over crowded conditions in some precincts.

There are precincts where the deer projects are attempting to bring back deer numbers, often where the needed two level forest is mostly one level as trees mature and grow.

Pumas(Panthers/Cougars/Painters/Mountain Lions/Catamounts/Indian Devil/Carcajouas described in A HISTORY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE GAME & FURBEARERS; Helenette Silver New Hampshire Fish & Game Dept 1957
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-"As the townships in the southern part of the state became occupied, white trappers pushed further into the north. It was while trapping on the Baker River in Rumney that John Stark was captured by Indians in 1752. Stark and his three companions had taken bear, beaver, CATAMOUNT, wolves and wildcats(bobcats) to the value of 560 pounds sterling when one of the party was killed and Stark and a second taken prisoner"

-"Catamount records for the state are fairly common, but it must be remembered that the pioneers did not kil lone every day. Very few of the settlers ever saw a panther"

The last Puma shot in New Hampshire, mounted in State Museum

-"Concerning Lyons, I will not say that I ever saw any myself, but some affirm that they have seen a Lyon at Cape Anne...Plimouth men have traded for Lyon skinnes in former times"(Wood 1634)

-"At this time we had some neighboring gentlemen in our house, where amognst a variety of discourse, they told me of a young Lyon killed at Piscataway by an Indian "(Josselyn 1674)

-'Unitl its disappearance in the late 19th century, the panthers range extended over the whole of the state. Even where they are common, panthers are seldom seen and difficult to hunt. In spite of mans' best efforts to erradicate them, they held on at least into the 1880's"

-"In Cheshire County, near the Connecticut Riverm Col. Bellows killed two bears and a Catamount on the same day in 1772"(Reed 1892)

the last Puma killed in Vermont

-"Other towns in the vicinity of of Troy-Dublin, Temple, Petersboro, Richmond and Hancock-report panthers present or killed around the time of setlement"(Hoover)

"A Panther was killed at Catamount Rock on the east side of the town of Windham"(Morrison 1883)

-"The capture during the last 10 years of an occasional Panther in the Green Mountains(Vermont) and in the forest regions of northern New Hampshire and Maine shows that it still lingers in Northern New England"(Allen 1876)

-"Jackson(1922) report a panther killed in the White Mountains(New Hampshire) about 1885"

the last Puma killed in New Brunswick, Eastern Canada

-"The last Panther bounty in Vermont was paid in 1896; Merriam recorded the presence of a panther in Vermont in 1904; they were seen or taken in the state up to 1909"

Feds scale back proposed N. Idaho caribou habitat

By TODD;seattletimes.com

Related

BOISE, Idaho — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to scale back the acreage it wants to set aside in northern Idaho and eastern Washington as critical habitat for the rare woodland caribou.

The agency announced Tuesday the designation of 30,100 acres in Idaho's Boundary County and Washington's Pend Oreille County as critical habitat to help improve conservation of the species. The agency initially proposed more than 375,000 protected acres, but modified its plans after taking public comment and reconsidering population data at the time the species was given protections under the Endangered Species Act in 1984. "Thoughtful inquiry and scientific information was presented to us," said Brian T. Kelly, the agency's Idaho supervisor. "Because of this, we have a modified rule that adheres to policy, is responsive to issues raised by others and most importantly addresses habitat for caribou conservation."

Woodland caribou are struggling to survive in habitat south of Canada and only four were tallied in the region encompassing northern Idaho and eastern Washington during an aerial census last winter.
To protect its habitat and bolster populations, the service proposed a special habitat stretching across 600 square miles, an area that also included Bonner County. But that plan and restrictions that would be imposed on the region angered recreation groups, loggers and local government officials.
Idaho's congressional delegation also got involved, complaining that the proposed habitat map was overreaching and infringed on human activity in the forest and backcountry.

Washington State herd of Woodland Caribou

But the agency's changes earned praise Tuesday. "I am pleased the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listened to the public outcry regarding the impacts this expanded critical habitat designation would have had on people's livelihoods," said U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador, a Republican.U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, also a Republican, said the agency acted "appropriately" in modifying its proposal to better balance the needs of humans and rare species.

It's unclear, however, what the reduced habitat decision means for a lawsuit filed in federal court related to caribou and its protected status.

Bonner County and the Idaho State Snowmobile Association sued the U.S. Department of Interior earlier this month, asking a federal judge to lift ESA protections for the caribou. The groups, along with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative legal group, petitioned the federal government earlier this year claiming ESA listing is unwarranted.

"We're still going forward with our lawsuit to require the service to respond to our petition, said Daniel Himebaugh, an attorney for PLF. "If our lawsuit is successful, then there will be no need for critical habitat designation at all."The rule becomes effective 30 days after it's published in the Federal Register
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.Mountain Caribou Range in Western USAThe most endangered large mammal in North America, mountain caribou retain only the barest foothold south of the Canadian border, and are in danger of extirpation. In the remote Selkirk Mountains of northeast Washington, northern Idaho, and southern British Columbia, one caribou herd persists; the Scorecard includes their precarious numbers as a proxy for the populations of mountain caribou across the northern regions.

In 2010, biologists counted only 43 animals in the Selkirk caribou herd, 3 fewer than the previous two years. But it’s not clear whether this represents a one-year decline or a more serious problem for the tiny population. The caribou are threatened on several sides. Clearcut logging has reduced the old growth trees that host the lichen that the caribou depend on for food. People, especially those on snowmobiles, startle the animals in winter and cause them to expend scarce calories to flee through deep snow. And predators such as cougars traverse the hardened snowmobile tracks into the herd’s winter range–travel that the predators could not otherwise manage.

THE WOLF IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
-"The settlers dreaded the periodic appearance of wolf packs more than that of any other animal, and total expenditures(bounties) on their account have probably been greater than for all other species combinded"

-"The Wolf was the only species covered under the laws of the Colony; almost every town offered local bounties"

-"Since 1882, when bounty payments are first itemized in the Reports of the State Treasurer, only 20 wolf bounties were collected, the last in 1895, they year the law was repealed"

-"Quite proolific and posessing few animal enemies, the wolf, Canis lupus lycaon(considered a subspecies of the gray wolf C. Lupus) was extremely commonin all parts of New Enagland at the time of discovery"

-"It was of divverse coloures; some sandy coloured, some griselled, some black"(Morton 1637)

-"Morton wrote that an Indian would gladly exchange 40 beaver skins fo rth pelt of one black wolf"

-"Wood(1634) stated that black wolf was valued by the Indians at 5 or 6 pounds shilling"

-"Even in southern New England, where Deer were at less disadvantage from the deep snows, the numbers of deer may have been limited less by food scarcity than by predation of wolves"

-"These pray uipon the Deare very much"(Morton 1637)

-"It not to be thought into what multitudes(Deer) they would encrease, were it not for the common devourer, the Wolfe"......................"Moose, although better able to dewfend themseoves were likewise much devoured"(Wood 1634)

-"Hare, rabbit and other smaller species were also eaten"

-"Collectively, New Hampshire histories show that wolves occurred periodicially, both as a result of their wanderings and marked fluctuations in numbers, to which they apparently were subject"

-"Wolves came in swarms. they were not plenty at all times. They seemed to roam over a vast extent of country, remaining in aany one place only a short time. The Moose, Deer and small game devoured, they were off to pastures new and to other forests teeming with life. Wolves, in great numbers came howling from the north in 1744, 1764 and 1784...............occasionally, a few would be found in the intermediate years"(Little 1888)

-"Great hunts(of the wolves) were sometimes organized by a 100 or more men, who surrounded an area, driving the wolves before them toward the center"

-"Nevertheless, as late as the Revolution, Belknap(1812) considered wolves very common and very noxious"

-In 1662, the town of Salem voted a bounty of 10 shillings to any Indian who should kill a Wolf"(Gilbert 1907)

-"In 1751, Salem was paying a bounty of 10 pounds Old Tenor for every grown wolf's head, and 3 pounds for each whelp"

-"Under a town regulationset up in 1716, Newfields paid bounty on 138 wolves from 1735 to 1737'(fitts 1912)

-"A bounty of 10 shillings for both grown bear and wolfes was offered in 1751. A year of so afterward, this was collected on 5 wolves. They committed to be common long after this time"(McDuffee 1892)

-"At the time Barnstead was settled, bears and wolves ere troublesome to the flocks and plantations of John Pitman. It was voted to giv e 3 pounds bounty on a hide of agray wolf"(Jewett 1872)

-"Sanborton paid $10 for adult wolves.................The last wolf was shot in 1790"(Runnells 1882)

-"Gilmanton voted a bounty on wolves in 1788"(Lancaster 1845)

-"Wolves were thick around antrim for almost 50 years after settlement.......Most of the damage ws done to sheep; although rarely and without success, they attacked cattle--the winter of 1784, a damaging year by wolves"(Cochrane 1880)

-'In 1784, Loudon paid a bounty of 10 pounds for every wolf killed in town"(Hurd 1885)

-"Wolves were abundant in Boscawen around the time of settlement. They were not completely eradicated for nearly a century, the last being killed near Cook's Hill in Webster iin 1831"(Coffin 1878)

-"Wolf's Meadown in Hopkinton was named because of the frequency of wolves in that area"(Lord 1890)

-"Long after the bears and wolves were driven from the territory, they found a comaatively safe retreat on the almost inaccessible side an in the deep ravines of Monadnock"(Norton 1888)

-"As wolves rarely attack men, except when nearly starved, they were chiefly dreaded because of the depredations made by them upon the calves and the sheep"(Norton 1888)

-"The last wolf was seen in Gilsum in the winter of 1847-48"(Hayward 1881)

-"the reduction of game species(combined with human bounty persecution)around 1880 coincides with the disappearance of Wolves from New Hampshire,,,,,,although in 1883, 12 wolves were bountied and in 1895, 2 were bountied...........As late as 1930, one wolf skin was listed on a trappers report(a coyote, perhaps??)

Rick:That article on lynx and the assertion that logging is key to success ignores some important research. And I think it represents the narrow linear thinking that is common among management types. AT least in the Rockies, there is a definite dependency on old growth forests. The lynx are totally lined up with these forests. What they do is sally forth into younger forests where the snowshoes are found, but their travel corridors, their denning habitat, etc. is all in older forests with a lot of snags, down wood on the ground, etc. So it is misleading to suggest that old growth is not needed--at least in the Rockies, and I suspect as well in the mid west though I don't know that to be true.Furthermore, this article gives the impression that logging is a substitute for the wildfires that previously created the snowshoe habitat.

There's a vast difference between logging and fires. The biggest is the loss of biomass with logging. The dead trees in a burnt forest are critical to the long term health of the ecosystem. Finally logging creates access for trappers, etc. that would not exist. And this creates vulnerability for lynx.George

Abstract:

The contiguous United States population of Canada lynx Lynx canadensis was listed as threatened in 2000. The long-term viability of lynx populations at the southern edge of their geographic range has been hypothesized to be dependent on old growth forests; however, lynx are a specialist predator on snowshoe hare Lepus americanus, a species associated with early-successional forests. To quantify the effects of succession and forest management on landscape-scale (100 km2) patterns of habitat occupancy by lynx, we compared landscape attributes in northern Maine, USA

Lynx were more likely to occur in landscapes with much regenerating forest, and less likely to occur in landscapes with much recent clearcut, partial harvest and forested wetland. Lynx were not associated positively or negatively with mature coniferous forest.
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Species InformationIn Wyoming, Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) live in subalpine/coniferous forests of mixed age and structural classes. Mature forests with downed logs and windfalls provide cover for denning sites, escape, and protection from severe weather. Early to mid-successional forests with high stem densities of conifer saplings provide optimal habitat for the lynx's primary prey, the snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus).

Snowshoe hares reach their highest densities in regenerating forests that provide visual cover from predators and thermal cover. To benefit lynx, habitats should retain an overstory for concealment and forested connectivity between feeding, security, and denning habitats.

Historically, lynx were observed in every mountain range in Wyoming.
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Some timber practices can remove the mature forest that the lynx needs for denning and rearing young. These activities can also disrupt lynx travel patterns, as the cats prefer tree cover. Roads threaten the lynx by fragmenting its habitat, isolating lynx populations, exposing them to predators, and providing competitor species new access to habitat formerly dominated by the lynx. For example, snowmobile traffic creates trails that may allow competitors like coyotes, wolves, and cougars access to lynx winter habitat

Historically, the Canada lynx ranged from Alaska across Canada and into many of the northern U.S. states. In eastern states, it lived in a transition zone in which boreal coniferous forests yielded to deciduous forests. In the West, it preferred subalpine coniferous forests of mixed age. It would den and seek protection from severe weather in mature forests with downed logs but hunt for its primary prey, the snowshoe hare, in young forests with more open space.

Lynx don't care about the line between Ontario and Minnesota, and researchers on both sides are starting to pay attention.

By Cheryl Lyn Dybas with Photography by Ilya Raskin; canadiangeographic.ca

Ron Moen rattles his grey pickup truck down a back road covered by hard-packed snow in Minnesota's Superior National Forest, a few dozen kilometres south of the Canada–U.S. border. We're surrounded by a winter wonderland of rime-tipped balsam firs and frozen lakes that stretches north to Ontario and beyond. Moen skids to a halt beside a steep snowdrift, and we step out of the truck into banks so deep, they stop the six-foot-tall wildlife biologist in his tracks. It's early March, dusk is settling, and all is silent. Moen and I slog a few metres toward the forest edge and enter a thicket of firs and alders, their boughs doubled over with ice from a recent storm. His voice muffled by the collar of his parka, Moen whispers, "It's out there. Somewhere."

Map the Lynx's range around Lake Superior.

"It" is Lynx canadensis, a northern forest cat as elusive as sasquatch. Known to the Ojibwa as "the vigilant protector of the people," the lynx sees without being seen in this white-on-white world. Here in the boreal forest, the medium-sized wild cat, which can grow to a metre in length and averages 5 to 15 kilograms, appears to have it all: its main prey, the snowshoe hare; the brushy woods the hare prefers; and the deep snows that the lynx and hare bound across using the thick cushions of hair on the soles of their large feet. But the lynx — which lives in all provinces except Prince Edward Island and in Minnesota, Maine, Montana, Washington, Wyoming, Alaska and Colorado, where a reintroduction program has been under way since 1999 — became a prize catch when fur prices boomed in the 1970s and 1980s. It was hunted and pushed to the brink in the lower 48 states and has been listed as a threatened species for a decade, even though it is still trapped, mostly for fur coats, in Canada. (In response to overharvesting in the early 1900s, Ontario instituted a trapline registration system in 1947; the province's population is said to be recovering.)

"A scenario predicted by climate-change models says the cat's habitat could move as much as 200 kilometres by 2100."

Minnesota Lynx

Biologists at Environment Canada believe there are at least 110,000 lynx in the country. Because the lynx is so secretive, however, population estimates are just that — estimates. Nobody knows how many live in the United States. (There may be lynx in Oregon and Idaho and from Wisconsin to New Hampshire, but experts believe the animals occasionally pass through and do not constitute established populations.) Fewer than 250 likely live in Minnesota, says Moen, a reserved 49-year-old based at the University of Minnesota Duluth. And as the continuous snow cover and boreal forest shift north, a scenario predicted by climate-change models, the cat's habitat could move as much as 200 kilometres by 2100. Which means, says forest ecologist Lee Frelich of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, "Canadian wildlife biologists need only look south" to see the conservation challenges they'll be facing in the near future.
Scientists on both sides of the border are trying to discover how much lynx populations in Ontario and Minnesota intermingle and which parts of the landscape play a critical role in their border crossings. Needless to say, lynx don't respect the international boundary, crossing the line regularly in search of meals or mates. Yet because they're a threatened species in the United States, they're managed completely differently in the two countries, says Justina Ray, a biologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada.

Minnesota is currently at the southern edge of the lynx's range east of the Rockies. Superior National Forest and Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming are two "priority areas" for lynx conservation, according to a 2007 report by The Nature Conservancy. "Intensive natural resources management intervention" will be required, the report says — in other words, the type of work that has taken Moen into these woods in search of lynx for more than seven years.

Out of sight behind the alders, Moen has set five box traps. Made of steel fencing and wood, with a trigger mechanism that shuts the door, the rectangular enclosures are baited with road-killed deer. Once trapped, as 35 have been over the years, the lynx is tranquilized using a pole syringe and is fitted with a Global Positioning System (GPS) or a Very High Frequency (VHF) radio collar so that Moen and his colleagues can track its movements. Moen also takes a blood sample to determine the animal's health and for DNA analysis to identify individuals.

There are no lynx in Moen's traps today, so we retreat to his truck. He opens the door and leans in, then emerges brandishing what looks like old-style TV rabbit ears to listen for the lynx already collared for his study. Each collar has its own frequency, which Moen can search for on his radio receiver. At first, we hear static. Then suddenly: beep-beep-beep.
"It's probably closer than we know," says Moen, peering into the darkness. Still, he decides to head back to town for the night. Lynx are most active at sunrise and sunset, so we'll return at dawn. The best way to catch a lynx, he says, is to think like one.

Map the range of the Lynx around Lake Superior.

While we sleep at a ski-and-snowshoe lodge about 40 kilometres from Moen's traps — an outpost complete with snowshoes hanging cross-hatched above a stone fireplace — lynx number 28 in Moen's study roams the forest. By the waning light of a last-quarter moon, L-28 walks with its hindquarters up and head down — typical lynx posture — leaving paw prints as big as a man's hand in the deep snow. The lynx circles a small lake and crosses a frozen alder swamp; it can smell fresh deer meat. It pads along a snowmobile trail a meal, the door of trap number one slams shut.

Next morning, I'm on my way back to the woods with Moen, two of his students and a field assistant. We park in yesterday's tire marks and see lynx tracks leading into the trees, as well as signs of a snowshoe hare darting to and fro.

Moen follows his boot prints to the first trap and is met by a pair of soul-searching, translucent green eyes. Crouching in the back of the trap, distinctive black ear tufts standing up, L-28 makes a low noise that's half growl, half hiss. Clearly, the cat didn't appreciate its overnight accommodations. Because L-28 already has a radio collar — it was first trapped in 2005 — Moen sidles to the back of the trap and slides open the door. I stand a metre away in thigh-deep snow. L-28 bounds out and over the snow in a flash, his oversized paws in near-gallop, lynx and forest blurring together as one.

One way to ensure that the lynx has a future in Minnesota, says Moen, is through "responsible" management programs in Canada and the United States that consider the animal's habitat along natural and not political lines. He has been quietly working to make that happen, organizing international workshops and collaborating with researchers, including OntarioMinistry of Natural Resources biologist Neil Dawson and Trent University ecologist Dennis Murray. They attended a 2007 gathering in Grand Portage, Minnesota, that drew together more than 70 wildlife biologists. It was the first workshop to assemble such a large number of lynx researchers from both sides of the border, fostering a small wave of international collaboration among scientists studying the animal. Which is important, because, as Moen says, "the frequency of cross-border lynx travel turns out to be much higher than anyone anticipated."

Some lynx in Moen's study, such as L-15, are veterans of back-and-forth forays. Trapped in Grand Marais, Minnesota, on March 30, 2004, L-15 was recorded northwest of Thunder Bay five months later — more than 150 kilometres away. Less than two weeks after that, L-15 was back in Grand Marais. It's usually males that wander far afield, says Moen. Females, probably because they have kittens, have smaller home ranges, which can vary from 60 to 100 square kilometres. This spring, however, a lynx in another study set a new record, travelling 2,000 kilometres from its transplanted home in Colorado back to Alberta before meeting its end in a fur trap.

Minnesota Lynx

Minnesota logger Joe Foster saw a lynx mother with her young in 2002. Two years later, Moen found lynx dens and saw a female lynx with kittens. These sightings constituted the first direct evidence that Minnesota has a resident lynx population.

There's another connection between logging and lynx: researchers have concluded that the success of a lynx population in its southern range depends not on old-growth forest, as had long been thought, but on early successional forest — woods with trees from 10 to 30 years old. Snowshoe hares, which make up more than 80 percent of the lynx's diet, hide there in young thickets or in "edgerows," the northern wilderness equivalent of the hedgerows where rabbits hop.

Moen's traps are located in a region of spruce-fir forests in early successional stages. Sections periodically harvested for timber are scattered across the area. Many have young trees springing up amid a lynx favourite: jumbles of downed branches atop scrubby undergrowth. "Logging isn't all bad for lynx," says Moen. "In some ways, it's the modern equivalent of [the regenerative] fires that once burned [but are now suppressed] from here through Canada."

National borders mean nothing to a fire, a forest or a lynx, says biologist Luke Hunter, executive director of Panthera, a New York City-based conservation organization founded in 2006 to protect the world's 36 species of wild cats. Panthera supports research such as the work of Megan Hornseth, a graduate student of Trent's Dennis Murray, who is studying how various types of forest edge affect lynx movement. "Co-operation between Canada and the United States," says Hunter, "could be a model for how to approach cat conservation around the world."

Ecologist and writer Cheryl Lyn Dybas lives just outside Washington, D.C. Photographer Ilya Raskin is a biology professor at Rutgers, in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Our basic research interests are in determining the proximate and ultimate factors that cause changes in the distribution and abundance of wildlife populations, and more specifically in understanding the dynamics of vertebrate predator-prey systems. Our research approach is largely empirical, based on field studies, and makes use of advances in spatial and statistical modeling including invasive and non-invasive field sampling, resource selection functions, proportional hazards survival and hazard modelling, and spatial simulation models using GIS. As humans, we are the dominant driver of change in the environments we live in and share with wildlife. Accordingly, we focus on research with applied conservation and management components. Our work continues to inform management issues involving wolves, coyotes, moose, and deer in Ontario and beyond

Project Objectives/Overview:Coyotes range across the majority of North America and are considered the archetypal generalist, able to adapt and thrive in a variety of environments. Across this range coyotes exhibit much variation in diet, habitat use, activity patterns, and demography making them an interesting animal to study, but often a difficult one to manage. In most areas, hunting and trapping of coyotes is generally ineffective at controlling their numbers or reducing conflict with people or livestock. Given the perceived increase in coyote numbers and conflicts with humans, we are undertaking this study to learn more about life history of harvested coyotes in southern Ontario to better inform management of these animals. Specifically our objectives are:

to understand how coyotes are able to withstand such high levels of harvest without any detectible decline in numbers,

quantify the spatial and temporal aspects of coyote depredation on livestock,

based on the above, assess efficiency of common control options employed against coyotes in response to depredation concerns,

We are conducting this study in Prince Edward County (PEC), in southeastern Ontario. The area is mostly agricultural and supports a large livestock industry. Funding Partners:

NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council)

MNR Applied Research and Development Branch

Trent University

Interesting fact! As of August 2012, we have radio-collared 120 coyotes since the project began in May 2010. Annual survival is low with fewer than half the collared coyotes surviving more than one year after marking. Food habits of this coyote population are also interesting with mice, voles, cottontails, and fruit (apples and berries) making up the majority of the diet. Unlike coyote populations in some forested areas, coyotes in PEC seem to make very little use of deer as a food item.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Effect of a Harvest Ban on Wolves

Canid and Ungulate Ecology Lab

Algonquin Provincial Park, 2002-2007

Algonquin Park is the largest protected area for wolves in Ontario. However, despite being protected within the Park's boundaries, many animals from the eastern half of Algonquin were shot, snared, or hit by cars while following migratory deer out of the Park in winter during the 1980s and 90s. This killing was cause for concern, and in November 2001 Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) announced a moratorium on all wolf hunting and trapping in the 40 townships surrounding Algonquin Park.

Eastern Wolf in Algonquin National Park

To determine the effects of this harvest ban on Algonquin wolves, we monitored 210 radio-collared wolves from 2002-2007. Pups were also surgically implanted with transmitters to monitor survival and cause-specific mortality.

Overall, we documented a moderate increase in annual survival rates of yearling and adult wolves in Algonquin Park following the ban. However, increased survival did not result in a detectable increase in either pack size or overall population density, due to high rates of dispersal by both juvenile and adult pack members and an increasing rate of natural mortality.

Although not required to prevent extirpation of wolves from the park, protection from humans seems to be helping park wolves minimize hybridization with coyotes and has resulted in a return to a more natural social structure (see Rutledge et al. 2010 in our Publications section). Research is presently underway to investigate this phenomenon more closely.

Although some populations remain strong, moose (Alces alces) density and distribution have been declining in many areas along the southern edge of their North American distribution. In many areas hunters commonly blame wolves and bears for low moose numbers, whereas excessive hunting has also been implicated in some declines.

In other populations, the causes of decline may be related primarily to factors including habitat loss and fragmentation, white-tailed deer parasites, predation, and climate change. During 2007-2009, we fit 93 adult female moose with vaginal implant transmitters to assist in locating and radio-collaring neonatal moose calves in central Ontario.

Our objectives were to measure calf survival and assess the relative importance of the various causes of death. Calves in the western half of our study area were exposed to a 6 day "open" (i.e. non lottery) hunt, whereas the eastern half of our study area occurred in Algonquin Provincial Park, where no hunting occurred. Annual survival of 87 collared calves was similar among areas and approached 62%.

Despite annual survival being similar between areas, predation by wolves and bears was a major source of mortality only in Algonquin where it was single largest cause of death. In the portion of the study area where hunting was permitted, annual calf mortality owing to hunting was only 16%.

We conclude that calf survival in our study area was moderate to high and that there is little justification for predator control or further restriction of calf hunting in this area.

Eastern wolves are listed as a species of 'Special Concern' in Canada due to concern about human impacts such as harvest and habitat loss (COSEWIC report). Whether hybridization represents a threat to the long-term persistence of eastern wolves in Ontario is not well understood. Therefore, studying hybridization dynamics between wolves and coyotes is necessary to assess the threat of hybridization to the persistence of the eastern wolf, and such studies should be conducted before eastern wolves become threatened or endangered.

Eastern Coyote

Objectives

·describe the spatial distribution of wolves, coyotes, and hybrid genotypes in central Ontario

Determining the Distribution of Ontario Canis Species and their Associated Hybrids

Ontario maintains two wolf species (eastern timber wolves,Canis lycaonand Gray wolves, Canis lupus), and composite animals with both genomes (e.g.C. lycaon x lupus), so accurate estimates of densities are dependent on an accurate genetic characterization of canids in the distributions of these two species.

Gray Wolf

This work has the specific goal of analyzing new samples from "gaps" in our previous sample distribution in Ontario, and includes the analysis of wolf DNA samples from the neighbouring jurisdictions of Minnesota, Michigan, and Quebec.

This will allow a more comprehensive analysis of the present day distribution of the various types of Ontario Canis species and allow further insight into the mechanisms promoting and preventing hybridization among the different Canid species in Ontario.

Eastern Wolf

Understanding Wolf-Caribou Interactions in Northern Ontario

Forest-dwelling caribou have experienced declining abundance and range retraction throughout large parts of the boreal zone in Ontario, resulting in the designation of woodland caribou as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act in Ontario and nationally under the federal Species at Risk Act.

Inadequate food supplies may be one factor related to the recent declines in woodland caribou populations, but in general, unsustainable levels of predation are thought to be a major contributing factor. However, there is no reason to expect that a single factor explains caribou decline across all of Ontario and our goal is to develop a more complex model evaluation design that considers the impact of (and interactions among) multiple causal factors.

·develop mechanistic movement models for woodland caribou and wolves on the basis of energy gain and predation risk

·use mechanistic movement models from ½ the study animals to predict patterns of home range use, habitat selection, and predation risk and test those predictions against field observations from the other ½ of study animals

·link the movement, energy-gain, predation risk, and vital rates sub-models with a spatially-explicit population viability model for woodland caribou

·use the PVA models to predict the long-term effect of forest disturbance from natural and anthropogenic causes on the probability of population persistence by woodland caribou and the potential caribou response to alternative management policies available to the government of Ontario

Study area

·we are conducting this work in 3 large study areas in northern Ontario; 2 disturbed landscapes south of the area of the undertaking, and a 3rd control site just west of Pickle Lake

Two Massachusetts Eastern Coyotes at their den site

Eastern Wolf in Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada

Aldo Leopold--3 quotes from his SAN COUNTY ALMANAC

"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."

Aldo Leopold

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

Aldo Leopold

''To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering."

Wildlife Rendezvous

Like so many conscientious hunters and anglers come to realize, good habitat with our full suite of predators and prey make for healthy and productive living............Teddy Roosevelt depicted at a "WILDLIFE RENDEZVOUS"

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This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer. In addition, my thoughts and opinions change from time to time…I consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind. This blog is intended to provide a semi-permanent point in time snapshot and manifestation of my various thoughts and opinions, and as such any thoughts and opinions expressed within out-of-date posts may not be the same, nor even similar, to those I may hold today. All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. Rick Meril and WWW.COYOTES-WOLVES-COUGARS.COM make no representations as to accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.